how about a check-in?

[ilanarama]

It's almost November. How's your running going?

And here in the US (and perhaps in some other places as well) today is Halloween, which means costumes. Here are some links to entertaining costumes spotted in races:

The Best Costumes at the Tokyo Marathon 2011

20 Funny Costumes From The NYC Marathon (2010)

Running in Superhero Costumes

Photos from the Bay to Breakers 2010, a race that draws a lot of costumed runners.

A list of "costume races" is here on the Hulaman website. (Guess what his costume is...)

Comments

[thalia]

Last week I ran 3.5 miles with no walking! And my pace has improved from really, really embarrassing to just plain embarrassing! This might not sound all that exciting, but I've been really frustrated with my progress since starting up again in August, and I'm finally starting to feel like I might eventually get back to where I was a few years ago.

[ilanarama]

Hey, congratulations! Embarrassing is WAY better than really, really embarrassing!

[sophinisba]

I thought I was doing really well the week before last but then my calf started hurting, and then it kept hurting, so I haven't run since last Tuesday and am not sure what to do now.

I did have a lot of fun cheering for a marathon yesterday.

[ilanarama]

Oh, it's fun to cheer on races. Bummer about your calf. Where is it bothering you? On the back of your leg or on the side (inside, outside?)? How high up?

Calves are pretty easy to self-massage. I do that a lot. You can also use a foam roller on them.

[ilanarama]

I got my mileage up to ~40mpw before running a half marathon, my first race since the injury - my time was my second slowest since I started seriously training, but I was just happy to have been able to run, you know? (Race report here.) Then I was sick (a cold, wasn't too bad and I could run through it, but was slow and didn't want to run very long) and hurty for a week; finally got back up to decent running last week, and I'm hoping to slowly ramp up my mileage to around 60mpw before my 10K in December.

[blnchflr]

I was thinking about running 75K in all of November, until I realized how much that is [for me].

60mpw, *shakes head in wonder* :o)

[ilanarama]

A friend of mine recently ran his first 100K race - that's over 60miles in ONE DAY!

[yvi]

I re-started! Not sure how I will keep up during the winter, but I am apparently in good shape because I could run 20 minutes without a break on my third run and on the fourth I did 3 8-minutes intervals.

[ilanarama]

Good job! Staying at it is probably easier than restarting.

[blnchflr]

I ran my fastest official 5K yet, though that is still over 29 mins, *sigh*. I was feeling very unfairly treated by the running gods, when I realized that if someone else asked me if I thought they could improve much running only once or twice a week, I'd tell them no, So really, no surprise my progress is so slow.

Still, fastest yet, and recently longest distance yet, so I'm quite happy. Must needs go for short interval run tomorrow, then rest for hilly race on the weekend.

Oh, and I got my Under Armour Frosty tights by mail today, and they are lovely long, but I can't quite tell if I messed up getting the size small instead of medium - they're pretty small, and especially tight around the ankles - but most reviews I saw online seemed to think they ran big rather than small. If they shrink in the wash, I'm definitely in trouble D:

[ilanarama]

Haha, yes, running once or twice a week you should be delighted to be getting any faster at all. Really, if you would only run 4-5 times a week, and get the distances a bit longer, I bet you'd get zoomy!

Also, cute shoes.